The Enquirer has been contacted by fed-up specialists who are being swamped with emails and phone calls from persistent publishers.

The ruse is for small media companies to promise main contractors and clients a site feature in their publications and websites in return for access to a project’s supplier list.

Sales people then swoop on the lists and pressure supply chain firms to take out paid adverts by inferring that the feature is endorsed by the main contractor.

One subcontractor told the Enquirer that an avalanche of emails was followed up this week by a desperate media salesperson pretending to work for a main contractor.

He said: “It reached a new low this week when one of these people came through pretending to work for a major contractor who are one of our main clients.

“Luckily the call came to me and I know the score on stuff like this.

“These people are just leeches. The magazines hardly print any copies and the websites have no real audience.

“They are taking money from naive firms who have been hoodwinked into thinking this is somehow a benefit for their business.”

Another added: “Main contractors, clients and their PR people need to put a stop to this at source – they shouldn’t be handing over supplier contacts to these type of firms.”